Join visual artists Ajuan Mance and Rhea Ewing for a workshop with the GLBT Historical Society diving into the power of showcasing queer stories and culture via comics. Utilizing themes of identity, community, and queer culture explored in our latest exhibition, Curve Magazine Cartoons: A Dyke Strippers’ Retrospective, participants will be introduced to the basics of creating autobiographical and personally resonant comic strips and zines using accessible materials. This event will begin with a conversation between our two speakers on their own experiences and work in the medium, and then will move into an interactive DIY workshop inviting LGBTQ+ people to create short memoir comics about themselves, their lives, their experiences and memories.
This event is co-sponsored by The Curve Foundation and Bay Area Queer Zine Fest.
SPEAKERS
Ajuan Mance (she/they) is a Professor of English at Mills College and an instructor in the Illustration and Comics programs at California College of the Arts. Ajuan’s comics have appeared in several anthologies, including the award-winning We’re Still Here, Drawing Power, and Menopause: A Comic Treatment. Ajuan is the author and illustrator of 1001 Black Men: Portraits of Masculinity at the Intersections (Stacked Decked Press), Living While Black: Portraits of Everyday Resistance (Chronicle Books), and the upcoming picture book What Do Brothas Do All Day (Chronicle Books) due out on November 14, 2023).
Rhea Ewing (they/them) is the award-winning artist and author behind FINE: a comic about gender. Rhea has been making comics since 2005 and has always found inspiration both in their queer community and in the wonder and diversity of the natural world. From their perspective, art and science are two sides of the same coin. Both require deep curiosity, a willingness to question, and a need to make meaning of the universe.
Headshot of Ajuan Mance by Cassandra Falby. Headshot of Rhea Ewing, photo courtesy of same.